Be a nice guy and you’ll be rewarded with cash and ice cream…

So the other day I found a wallet on the train with  ¥50,000 in it. That’s £320 or $500. Along with the cash, there were about ten different bank cards, a million loyalty cards and the guy’s full medical history. There was also one of his own business cards – so being the nice guy that I am, I called him up to arrange to give the wallet back. Of course I could have kept the cash and bought 100 bowls of ramen, but that would have been the scummy thing to do. Japan is one of the safest, most responsible countries in the world, so I wasn’t about to buck the trend.

I rang the guy’s company first but he was out on business so I tried his mobile. In a mixture of crappy Japanese on my part and crappy English on his part we arranged for me to take the wallet to the koban (neighbourhood police station) near where I work so he could collect it. Job done. I had done my good deed for the day and that was that, or so I thought…

The next day he called me up to thank me and asked if he could come over to my house to “show his appreciation.” Together with his wife, he called for me about ten minutes ago. I offered them some tea and he gave me a big box of Häagen-Dazs and ¥10,000 (£65) as way of thanks.

What goes around comes around!